Hi,
sorry I posted too fast and so my mind mixed things up a bit
You have to remove the sled which is on a metal axle on one side and free sliding on a plastic guide on the other side, it's fully compatible and then you have a fresh laser on the former CDM12 frame. I thought the metal rod/rail was on rubber support at its ends, maybe not.
You will end up changing this part and not the whole:
New Cdm12.4 Vam1204 Cd Optical Pickup Cdm-12.4 Cdm 12.4 - Buy Cdm12.4,Vam1204,Laser Unit For Jukebox Product on Alibaba.com
Take your time and it's just easier than it seems. Done it several times here While you are at it change the belt hidden under a tiny cover just next to the tray opening. That will prevent from loosen belt to squeal like hell and keeping the tray closed...
sorry I posted too fast and so my mind mixed things up a bit
You have to remove the sled which is on a metal axle on one side and free sliding on a plastic guide on the other side, it's fully compatible and then you have a fresh laser on the former CDM12 frame. I thought the metal rod/rail was on rubber support at its ends, maybe not.You will end up changing this part and not the whole:
New Cdm12.4 Vam1204 Cd Optical Pickup Cdm-12.4 Cdm 12.4 - Buy Cdm12.4,Vam1204,Laser Unit For Jukebox Product on Alibaba.com
Take your time and it's just easier than it seems. Done it several times here
While you are at it change the belt hidden under a tiny cover just next to the tray opening. That will prevent from loosen belt to squeal like hell and keeping the tray closed...
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10 years!
Well, seems times goes by veeeeeery fast! Happy birthday to your daughter Ray
Hi Lee, Martin, Ricardo and AVR (damn your secret firstname vanished from my tiny breain...) =)
Hi guys, how are things over here?
Been away for a while for more important matters. Here's the result:
Her names are Mara Elise, born December 1st, 13:34.
I'm a happy man!!
Well, seems times goes by veeeeeery fast! Happy birthday to your daughter Ray
Hi Lee, Martin, Ricardo and AVR (damn your secret firstname vanished from my tiny breain...) =)
So hello everyone, not sure if this is the right place to ask but I am wanting to know if there are any reliable substitutes for the TCA0372DP2?
This is the focus and radial drive in a Philips player (a Kinergetics player actually but has a CD380 mech). The problem I am having with this player is agressive "snapping" and skipping playback for the first couple minutes when turned on cold, poor track seeking and the radial head occasionally "snapping" to full rotation when a disk is first read.
Yes the player has been fully recapped and gone through, made sure radial bearing and laser was clean, checked door switches. The player was brought home dead with the exception of occasionally playing the firs 3 seconds of a CD upon cold turn on before dying altogether (stopped playing). The problem was an open laser drive transistor type BC338 (so force of habbit now with a dead player is to check this transistor) and the ZTX450 seemed to do the job well.
Anyways, I don't know how often a TCA0372 type IC goes bad but it does run a bit warm in this player and it seems like possibly a heat dependant problem so far. I just wanted to clear up why I suspect it could be that particular Ic. Also I did go through the service manual and did some adjustments (focus mainly).
Hope everyone has a happy new year!
This is the focus and radial drive in a Philips player (a Kinergetics player actually but has a CD380 mech). The problem I am having with this player is agressive "snapping" and skipping playback for the first couple minutes when turned on cold, poor track seeking and the radial head occasionally "snapping" to full rotation when a disk is first read.
Yes the player has been fully recapped and gone through, made sure radial bearing and laser was clean, checked door switches. The player was brought home dead with the exception of occasionally playing the firs 3 seconds of a CD upon cold turn on before dying altogether (stopped playing). The problem was an open laser drive transistor type BC338 (so force of habbit now with a dead player is to check this transistor) and the ZTX450 seemed to do the job well.
Anyways, I don't know how often a TCA0372 type IC goes bad but it does run a bit warm in this player and it seems like possibly a heat dependant problem so far. I just wanted to clear up why I suspect it could be that particular Ic. Also I did go through the service manual and did some adjustments (focus mainly).
Hope everyone has a happy new year!
I may have a similar issue to Crazzy.
I have a 63 KI MK2.
Love it. But since day 1 it's been reluctant to play first time when switched on, needing some gentle coaxing in to life, usually after 5 mins or so it will "go". Symptoms are, turn on, put disc in, press play, usually nothing, you can see the drawer move slightly (closed but seems to want to close a little more, but it is properly closed), keep pressing play and eventually it will start to spin the disc up a little, then a little more, then show a disc registry, and finally will spin up properly, show registry and play. Once your at this stage you can play, stop, skip tracks, swap discs as much as you like, till you switch it off and let it cool down, in other words I reckon if you left it switched on 24/7 it would be fine.
I did buy it knowing this and got it a bit cheaper because of it, and the seller who was honest about the fault threw in the new laser mech he had bought but not fitted.
When you put it in service mode it comes up with code 2. laser focus from memory.
I replaced the laser mech yesterday, now nothing, going through the service tests it performs them all, but put a disc in and nothing, will not play now no matter how long you try.
Please Help!
My issue is I love the CD player but really can't afford to get stuck in to a loop of dumping money in to repairing it, if it's something I can track down and repair myself great, but the thought of being in to a repair for £100 or so to pay someone to do it just makes it impractical, while I don't get anywhere near as turned on by a newer cd6006 uk they get amazing reviews, have a usb input and are around £200ish. Dumping too much in to my poor old KI doesn't make sense.
I have a 63 KI MK2.
Love it. But since day 1 it's been reluctant to play first time when switched on, needing some gentle coaxing in to life, usually after 5 mins or so it will "go". Symptoms are, turn on, put disc in, press play, usually nothing, you can see the drawer move slightly (closed but seems to want to close a little more, but it is properly closed), keep pressing play and eventually it will start to spin the disc up a little, then a little more, then show a disc registry, and finally will spin up properly, show registry and play. Once your at this stage you can play, stop, skip tracks, swap discs as much as you like, till you switch it off and let it cool down, in other words I reckon if you left it switched on 24/7 it would be fine.
I did buy it knowing this and got it a bit cheaper because of it, and the seller who was honest about the fault threw in the new laser mech he had bought but not fitted.
When you put it in service mode it comes up with code 2. laser focus from memory.
I replaced the laser mech yesterday, now nothing, going through the service tests it performs them all, but put a disc in and nothing, will not play now no matter how long you try.
Please Help!
My issue is I love the CD player but really can't afford to get stuck in to a loop of dumping money in to repairing it, if it's something I can track down and repair myself great, but the thought of being in to a repair for £100 or so to pay someone to do it just makes it impractical, while I don't get anywhere near as turned on by a newer cd6006 uk they get amazing reviews, have a usb input and are around £200ish. Dumping too much in to my poor old KI doesn't make sense.
Thanks to everyone contributing to this awesome thread - been following along with it for years and finally taken the plunge in upgrading my CD63 KI with Ray’s list + Martin Clark’s clock hacks etc, regs to the driver ICs, IEC socket and mains filtering and RA Clarity Mains, it’s sounding unrecognisable compared to my other standard CD63 but what an addictive hobby!!
For the next round of mods I’ve ordered a low jitter clock for the DAC, low noise regs for all the 5v feeds and hoping this makes another nice difference. I’ve already kludged in a separate 5v reg for the DAC and that was another wow moment so looking forward to doing it all properly.
I’m running LME49720NA opamps in there at the moment. The Muses ones have got my attention lately and I’m yet to read about anyone trying them in a CD63. Does anyone have any experience with using the 01/02 or a combination of the two?
As to the above 2 posts my knowledge only stretches to checking all the voltages at all the ICs and making sure they’re present and correct. Mine displayed similar behaviour when I forgot to attach the feed to the 5v regulator the DAC first time... ooops.
For the next round of mods I’ve ordered a low jitter clock for the DAC, low noise regs for all the 5v feeds and hoping this makes another nice difference. I’ve already kludged in a separate 5v reg for the DAC and that was another wow moment so looking forward to doing it all properly.
I’m running LME49720NA opamps in there at the moment. The Muses ones have got my attention lately and I’m yet to read about anyone trying them in a CD63. Does anyone have any experience with using the 01/02 or a combination of the two?
As to the above 2 posts my knowledge only stretches to checking all the voltages at all the ICs and making sure they’re present and correct. Mine displayed similar behaviour when I forgot to attach the feed to the 5v regulator the DAC first time... ooops.
Muses01 opamps do work fantastically well in this player - wider soundstage and better imaging than the LME49720s they replaced.
Unfortunately.... it seems like things were going too well with it. As I was clocking the servo, one of the very last mods I planned to do, the /2 feed from my 16MHz main clock was clearly not working and causing the servo to behave very oddly and not read the disc. I returned all the original clock components to the PCB and... it’s still doing the same thing. It was working 2 minutes previously with the DAC clock fitted so I can only assume the servo got fried somewhere in the process of clocking it checked continuity on all pins and they’re fine.
I considered trying to replace the servo chip but there’s no guarantee I’d be able to make a successful job of it. A better option might be to transfer the mods and KI transformer over to my spare CD53 PCB and use that... the CD63 PCB has a lot of “experiments” and bad soldering I did years ago that’s been repaired on it so might be better to start fresh.
Unfortunately.... it seems like things were going too well with it. As I was clocking the servo, one of the very last mods I planned to do, the /2 feed from my 16MHz main clock was clearly not working and causing the servo to behave very oddly and not read the disc. I returned all the original clock components to the PCB and... it’s still doing the same thing. It was working 2 minutes previously with the DAC clock fitted so I can only assume the servo got fried somewhere in the process of clocking it
checked continuity on all pins and they’re fine.I considered trying to replace the servo chip but there’s no guarantee I’d be able to make a successful job of it. A better option might be to transfer the mods and KI transformer over to my spare CD53 PCB and use that... the CD63 PCB has a lot of “experiments” and bad soldering I did years ago that’s been repaired on it so might be better to start fresh.
Some issues reading cds.
Hi all,
I'm not sure if this a right place, I have a cd63 ki mk2.. The old laser skips so I changed a new one, a VAM1201 laser only.
After changing, it seems the disc spins, the display only shows disc and it can't read the CDs. I'm pretty sure I followed all. The steps properly. I tried turning the variable pot for a strong laser output, but it didn't work.
I then replaced back to my original laser, thinking if I increase the laser output, it'll work. I turned the resistor slightly clockwise and fitted back my old one. And to no avail, it's worse than before. It's not reading the disc at all. When I press play, the motor just spins. And that's all. It'll stop spinning after awhile.
Also, how does the CD sensor work?
Hope someone can help.
Hi all,
I'm not sure if this a right place, I have a cd63 ki mk2.. The old laser skips so I changed a new one, a VAM1201 laser only.
After changing, it seems the disc spins, the display only shows disc and it can't read the CDs. I'm pretty sure I followed all. The steps properly. I tried turning the variable pot for a strong laser output, but it didn't work.
I then replaced back to my original laser, thinking if I increase the laser output, it'll work. I turned the resistor slightly clockwise and fitted back my old one. And to no avail, it's worse than before. It's not reading the disc at all. When I press play, the motor just spins. And that's all. It'll stop spinning after awhile.
Also, how does the CD sensor work?
Hope someone can help.
Turning the presets on the pickup means you have no way of knowing what the laser is doing now. These really are factory set and should not be altered.
Without a laser power meter all you can do is use a suitable scope and look at the RF signal, adjusting the power for around 1.3 to 1.5 volts peak to peak of signal. If the disc spins then something should be visible to begin adjusting the amplitude.
Having disturbed the setting you have nothing to loose in altering it further... and don't assume clockwise is more current, it may not be.
The CD is sensed by the servo electronics looking for a 'FOK' or focus OK signal from the pickup. Basically if a reflective disc is in place then this is detected and the player can then focus on to the stationary disc. Only then will the disc spin to approximate correct speed at which point the servo takes over and locks the platter speed to the correct value by comparing the data rate off the disc with a fixed into quartz reference.
Without a laser power meter all you can do is use a suitable scope and look at the RF signal, adjusting the power for around 1.3 to 1.5 volts peak to peak of signal. If the disc spins then something should be visible to begin adjusting the amplitude.
Having disturbed the setting you have nothing to loose in altering it further... and don't assume clockwise is more current, it may not be.
The CD is sensed by the servo electronics looking for a 'FOK' or focus OK signal from the pickup. Basically if a reflective disc is in place then this is detected and the player can then focus on to the stationary disc. Only then will the disc spin to approximate correct speed at which point the servo takes over and locks the platter speed to the correct value by comparing the data rate off the disc with a fixed into quartz reference.
Hi Terenceng,
As Mooly said, unless you have access to an osciloscope you shouldn't mess around with the trim pot on the laser - if you made a note of how far you've turned it put it back to where it started.
Now check the connector on the broad ribbon cable - the pins get flattened over time and don't make good contact so you may need to very carefully bend them out a bit with a sewing needle.
Still no joy? - you'll need to get the player into service mode to see what's going wrong - with a cd in the drawer, switch it off and then hold play and stop buttons down while you switch it back on.
This gets into mode 0 (display P00, focus off, spindle off, radial off, mute on) - check the sled moves out when you press cue/review
Press next to get to mode 1 (display P01, focus on, spindle off, radial off, mute on)
Press next again to get to mode 2 (display P02, focus on, spindle on, radial off, mute on)
Press next to go to mode 3 or prev to go back to mode 1
Mode 3 (display P03, focus on, spindle on, radial on, mute off)
Again sled will move out when you press cue and back in when you press review. Pressing stop will light up all display elements and pressing pause will display model and version numbers.
Switch player off to exit service mode. If you post any error codes you see I can let you know which part of the player is giving problems - the error codes get displayed as Err 02, Err 08 etc.
Btw, skipping discs isn't necessarily the laser at fault, often it's a build up of dried up grease on the metal rail the laser tracks along, cleaning this and re-lubing with a small amount of silicone grease helps a lot.
Good luck and let us know what you find
As Mooly said, unless you have access to an osciloscope you shouldn't mess around with the trim pot on the laser - if you made a note of how far you've turned it put it back to where it started.
Now check the connector on the broad ribbon cable - the pins get flattened over time and don't make good contact so you may need to very carefully bend them out a bit with a sewing needle.
Still no joy? - you'll need to get the player into service mode to see what's going wrong - with a cd in the drawer, switch it off and then hold play and stop buttons down while you switch it back on.
This gets into mode 0 (display P00, focus off, spindle off, radial off, mute on) - check the sled moves out when you press cue/review
Press next to get to mode 1 (display P01, focus on, spindle off, radial off, mute on)
Press next again to get to mode 2 (display P02, focus on, spindle on, radial off, mute on)
Press next to go to mode 3 or prev to go back to mode 1
Mode 3 (display P03, focus on, spindle on, radial on, mute off)
Again sled will move out when you press cue and back in when you press review. Pressing stop will light up all display elements and pressing pause will display model and version numbers.
Switch player off to exit service mode. If you post any error codes you see I can let you know which part of the player is giving problems - the error codes get displayed as Err 02, Err 08 etc.
Btw, skipping discs isn't necessarily the laser at fault, often it's a build up of dried up grease on the metal rail the laser tracks along, cleaning this and re-lubing with a small amount of silicone grease helps a lot.
Good luck and let us know what you find
ahhh okay! Thanks guys!
Actually I was tired of fiddling with it, just wanted to get it to work since I don't really listen to CDP anymore, so wasn't motivated to get it to work. I ended up sending it to a local tech nearby and he fixed it and he told me contacts were bad and lasers were bad.
Btw, are the mods in OP still applicable. This thread is crazy.. 2.1k pages. Makes me procrastinate if i ever want to mod my cd63 haha..
Actually I was tired of fiddling with it, just wanted to get it to work since I don't really listen to CDP anymore, so wasn't motivated to get it to work. I ended up sending it to a local tech nearby and he fixed it and he told me contacts were bad and lasers were bad.
Btw, are the mods in OP still applicable. This thread is crazy.. 2.1k pages. Makes me procrastinate if i ever want to mod my cd63 haha..
Yes, the mods in that OP are still valid, some of the specific brands of e.g. capacitor may not be available but you can easily find an equivalent (or better) part of the same value. Only thing I would add to that list would be LM4562 / LME49720 (essentially the same chip) as the opamp replacement.
Getting shot of the output bipolar caps, muting transistors and bypassing the HDAM will cost nothing in parts and makes a noticible diffence to the sound, especially if you upgrade the opamps. After that re-clocking the DAC and adding separate low noise 5V supplies to the DAC probably makes the biggest impact, but every mod will bring about an improvement, you can (and I have) go on modding for ages...
Getting shot of the output bipolar caps, muting transistors and bypassing the HDAM will cost nothing in parts and makes a noticible diffence to the sound, especially if you upgrade the opamps. After that re-clocking the DAC and adding separate low noise 5V supplies to the DAC probably makes the biggest impact, but every mod will bring about an improvement, you can (and I have
) go on modding for ages...Yes, the mods in that OP are still valid, some of the specific brands of e.g. capacitor may not be available but you can easily find an equivalent (or better) part of the same value. Only thing I would add to that list would be LM4562 / LME49720 (essentially the same chip) as the opamp replacement.
Getting shot of the output bipolar caps, muting transistors and bypassing the HDAM will cost nothing in parts and makes a noticible diffence to the sound, especially if you upgrade the opamps. After that re-clocking the DAC and adding separate low noise 5V supplies to the DAC probably makes the biggest impact, but every mod will bring about an improvement, you can (and I have
Agreed - the above “free” mods make a big difference. I’d only bypass the HDAM once you upgrade the opamps. I had LM49720s and they were fantastic but swapping to some good FET types brought about more worthwhile improvements. I used Muses 01 but you probably don’t need to spend that much to get the results - see some of the recommendations in this thread.
Disconnecting the headphone jack and digital out are more free wins if you don’t need them. Bypassing the fuses is free again and worthwhile if you’re willing to take the risk - I haven’t tried any “audiophile” fuses but tread carefully with those.
I have a heavily modded 63KI awaiting a servo chip, but in the meantime just the “free” mods above, opamps, a cheap eBay clock and upgraded C813 and 814 on a spare CD53 and it definitely turns it into a very nice sounding player.
Transport odd behavior switching off?
After completing the power supply mods, particularly the servo transformer (50VA) and caps, 22000uF & 4700uF, my CD63 drive has started to do a strange wobble after switching the player off. Everthing works perfectly and I'm delighted with the results just this strange behavior. What appears to happen is as the power decays away after turning off the drive motor spins up for a brief moment and the "puck" wobbles around for a bit. Probably not doing any damage but rather annoying. Anyone have any idea why?, could it be due to the imbalance in the smoothing caps? Cheers,
Bob.
After completing the power supply mods, particularly the servo transformer (50VA) and caps, 22000uF & 4700uF, my CD63 drive has started to do a strange wobble after switching the player off. Everthing works perfectly and I'm delighted with the results just this strange behavior. What appears to happen is as the power decays away after turning off the drive motor spins up for a brief moment and the "puck" wobbles around for a bit. Probably not doing any damage but rather annoying. Anyone have any idea why?, could it be due to the imbalance in the smoothing caps? Cheers,
Bob.
I've more or less finished my CD63 project now and it's sounding nice. Ended up using a CD53 board with the KI transformer and chassis etc as my KI board sadly died a death but same end result.
I don't have any CD63s left to compare it to but it's clearly now in a different class to a standard CD53.
I've fitted separate regs to the DAC, decoder and servo chip. These are fitted to the board as close to the chips as possible. At the moment the reg grounds are soldered to the top ground plane of the board with the outputs on the nearest resistor to the local decoupling cap (under the board).
I was wondering where is the best place to ground these regulators. With them grounded on the top plane the return current has to pass through the nearest link from the top plane to the bottom plane which might be some distance away. Would it be better to find a ground point under the board closer to the outputs for them e.g. the negative of the decoupling cap?
I don't have any CD63s left to compare it to but it's clearly now in a different class to a standard CD53.
I've fitted separate regs to the DAC, decoder and servo chip. These are fitted to the board as close to the chips as possible. At the moment the reg grounds are soldered to the top ground plane of the board with the outputs on the nearest resistor to the local decoupling cap (under the board).
I was wondering where is the best place to ground these regulators. With them grounded on the top plane the return current has to pass through the nearest link from the top plane to the bottom plane which might be some distance away. Would it be better to find a ground point under the board closer to the outputs for them e.g. the negative of the decoupling cap?